Tag Archives: protest

Real change will not come via the ballot box. When you realise that then maybe we can all get on with the job at hand.

Sure, it will be great if Jeremy Corbyn can lead Labour to victory in 2020 as a Labour government will bring about some much needed social justice and societal changes but there are some fundamentals that are being missed.

Change within government takes time. We are wholly reliant on Labour acting quickly and decisively if they get into power to bring about the promised changes and as much as we are fans of Jeremy and Co. they do have a habit of erring on the side of debate at the moment. That however is just the side show.

The real blockage to change is what would be the opposition and the House of Lords, not to mention Jeremy Corbyn’s own detractors. ‘Bills’ in parliament as you know do not just ‘go through’ every time, they can be blocked or a forced alteration can be made. All these factors and more could all block many proposed changes and let’s not forget that as has happened for decades and decades, sooner or later the Conservatives would get back into power, it’s a given, anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves and when they do they may well undo everything that has been done, certainly some of it. It’s happened before and it will happen again.

So what of progression? Where does that leave those of us who know full well that many changes we need today must be permanent changes, not just time fillers until the next government is voted in? People can debate all they like about intricacies of policy and minor changes to them but unless we get a handle on fundamental issues such as environment, energy, war, social justice and the redistribution of wealth we will be destined to repeat the same mistakes for a long time to come and it will take up time that we can ill afford to lose.

Europe is moving to the right and even in the UK anyone who can’t see the lurch to the right is on borrowed time. Whilst the EU panders to NATO and Hilary Clinton sounds the war drum over Russia, as the Conservatives continue their expected further cuts to welfare and as the world’s nations fail to take seriously their commitment (did you ever really believe them?) to limiting climate temperature rises to 2 degrees (like you can ever make such a fanciful promise) and as the government secures our future energy policy to Fracking and Nuclear energy and stopping subsidies on Solar energy.. are we not blindly walking into an irretrievable oblivion?

Where are the activists? The earth warriors? Where are the freedom fighters? The resistance? The anti capitalists? Where are the people?

I’m not talking about the people stuck in front of their TV screens watching X Factor or Watching Sky News believing everything that is fed to them.. I am talking about you, the ones reading this.. where has the passion for protest gone? Have you given up already?

Without the art of protest, the government can act with impunity. It can’t just be any protest either. Too many protests are for nothing, understated and ineffectual. Localised protests sometimes have an impact because they are low level issues but when it comes to major national and international issues protest in its current form rarely hits the right note.

We have forgotten how to organise, to resist, to be resolute in what we believe.

Back in early 2015 two large protests were due to take place in London at the same time as the state opening of Parliament, one of the protests was organised by the People’s Assembly and the other UK Uncut. The setting was perfect, a televised showing for all the world to see. A wonderful opportunity to make the message loud and clear. Yet nothing. The protests did not in the end take place at Parliament Square there were no interruptions to the State opening and the two protests did not even converge on each other. It was a golden opportunity and neither group took up the mantle but then I guess that’s to be expected when one of the groups is backed by representatives of a political party, in this case Labour. The point here being that it was disorganised and ineffectual.

Protest must be taken to the belly of the beast, it must be decisive and it must have an impact, it should be disobedient at the least, the message must be clear and the actions must be coordinated and ideally independent of any type of body. It must come from the people self organising. This doesn’t even have to be a left/right process it can speak to everyone. The impact of good protest should not be under estimated. In the UK we have a proud history of protest be it the suffragettes or the eco warriors in the 80’s, we have a proud history of direct action in the form of the likes of the Animal Liberation Front. Where did it all go? Today 1 million people could not stop the Iraq War and hundreds of thousands could not prevent us going into Syria. We praise the Paris climate meeting for setting targets… again… but do nothing when it’s clear they don’t intend to abide by their standards. We do little to stop hugely unpopular things such as HS2, Hinckley point, a stop on Solar subsidies, the overriding of local authorities on Fracking. When will we stand up to any of it?

The point is that we are on a tightrope in terms of our future and I believe we are teetering on the brink of some really bad times for the planet and for the people’s of this world and we sit idly by as if Jeremy Corbyn or any other mouthpiece will fix everything for us. Don’t be so fooled. It’s up to us to do something as well. We claim to be activists but yet I don’t see the ground swell of resistance. In fact it’s disappearing.

Like this:

Charlotte Church, singer and wet fish
We condemn the spitting incidents at the Conservative conference at the weekend but we do not condemn in any way the shouting of the word ‘scum’ or the surrounding of the press.
Miss Charlotte Church will have now fallen foul of the down trodden.

In this article she condemns the behaviour shown towards people at the Tory conference and is to write an open letter of apology on behalf of ‘most’ of the protesters in attendence, as explained in this Sky News article.

“I would never call anybody scum. I think it’s fundamentally unhelpful in the issues that we are trying to talk about.

“Name calling is never a good thing. These are tiny instances which have happened in tens of thousands of people.

– Charlotte Church

Church may soon realise that celebrities that put their head above the parapet in support of a cause, especially one such as austerity and anti government are held to a special kind of accountability and that is one of understanding and a shared element of hardship.

They say that ‘Riot is the language of the unheard’ the same can be said of expressions of anger towards the very people in charge of the establishment that rules over them in times of boom and bust and right now for many people, it’s bust.

One million people use food banks. Thousands are homeless and austerity continues whilst the bankers continue to get bonuses and Osbourne gives more money to businesses and the rich through tax breaks and incentives. It’s no wonder people are angry and they have every right to confront those politicians when they have an opportunity. They have a right to be angry towards people who voted for a regime that condemns the most poor in society just so they can be a little richer than yesterday.

They also have a right to be angry at a press that condemns them through news bulletins and programming. The poor in society make up much of the car crash TV we see on our screens. They fail to bring politicians to account when interviewed and allow them to spout lies and deceit without challenging those very lies.

People feel betrayed by the system that sets them up to fail.

So when Miss Charlotte Church says she will apologise on behalf of ‘most’ protesters, she is saying that she is distancing herself from the most vocal element. She is distancing herself from the unruly. She is seperate from them. They are beneath her. Instead she will apologise to the establishment to save her own reputation.

This smacks of a situation where she wants to raise her voice.. But only so much, so as not to offend. The same can be said for the organisation that is The Peoples Assembly, set up and Ratified by members of the Labour establishment some time ago now, they behave because they need to keep the support of their Labour friends. After all, a Labor MP can not be seen to be associating with aggressive demonstrators. The People’s Assembly in this respect are nothing more than controlled opposition and Church is part of that as evidenced by her reaction.

This is what is partly meant by controlled opposition.

In May 2015 the People’s Assembly had organised a protest to coincide with the State opening of Parliament in Parliament Square. The People’s Assembly had every opportunity to be heard by millions on TV and thousands lining the square.

They never did go into Parliament Square. They didn’t disrupt and they didn’t make themselves heard. State opening passed off peacefully without incident. A great opportunity deliberately missed.

Well, you can’t have Labour MP’s disrupting an official government organised event can you now?

John McTernan
John McTernan, Political commentator, political advisor and Political secretary to Tony Blair 2005-07 was a guest on the Daily Politcs TV show today. (Video Below)

During the show he said “most people do not live in a world of raging class consciousness and fuelled with anger at an elite”

It was rightly pointed out to him that there has been a large anti austerity movement aimed at the elite and those in power. That, Culminating in a 500k strong anti austerity march this Summer. Couple that with multiple other smaller rallies and protests along with the recent Scottish ‘Yes’ to independence campaign and the movement that saw Anti austerity SNP destroy labour in Scotland and the unprecedented campaign by Jeremy Corbyn, you have to ask what planet McTernan is living on.

During the show he was highly dismissive and critical of Corbyn and the parties chances, let alone their policies and promises.

His attitude reeks of the elitism that he refutes even exists. He clearly believes there is no elitism and any idea that there is a class war out there is to him, nonsense.

There is class consciousness out there and it’s been exasperated by David Cameron and his university chums. It’s not just exclusive to these shores, it’s happening across the world including Greece where Syriza have just been re-elected, Pademos in Spain and Bernie Sanders in the USA. Yes, even the USA is fed up with the capitalist elite.

A lot can happen between now and 2020 but all being well, with no surprises along the way, with the wind in our favour I highly predict the Tory machine will start to break down. The facade will break and by 2020 the majority of the 34% of the electorate that didn’t vote in 2015 will give a nod to Labour, at least in England.

Most people do not live in a world of raging class consciousness and fuelled with anger at an elite

– John McTernan

So why has Ternan made such a dismissive claim of Corbyn and Labour? Because there is no precedent for this situation. The right wing press and Judas’ of the party don’t understand what is going on. The next generation of thinkers and political commentators are coming and they have grown up with Social media and the Internet unlike the ‘Educated’ elite and the brainwashed graduates who only know how to think with a text book telling them how to do that thinking. It’s this new generation that is shaping things. The power of independent media and the Internet is coming home to roost.

It will take a grave error in judgement from Labour to derail this freight train. Let’s just hope that Corbyn can privatise it before Cameron gets his claws into the electorate any further.

John McDonnell
On a side note John McDonnell, shadow chancellor made his views on the SNP clear at today’s conference.

We think that far from wooing the vote up in Scotland with his speech he has vastly under- estimated the lay of the land.

Labour have lost Scotland for a generation or more, at least. Labour would have done more for their cause if they had either shut up about the SNP or worked with them. All that has been achieved with this speech is to prolong any possible come back for Labour in Scotland, if it was ever even on the cards.
See his comments in the video below.

Hot on the heels of ‘The Protest Players – Part 1‘ comes the second instalment of this mini series looking at ‘who is who?’ of the organisers of the recent batch of anti austerity protests.

This time we focus on UK Uncut who arranged the protest in the image below for Saturday 30th May 2015

and we also look at the organisers of the second protest of the day as shown in the image below…

The Organisers of ‘The Great British Right off’ (we’re not sure if that’s a grammatical error or if its meant to be a play on words) were three individuals. Jon Warner, Kelly Fitz and Kyle Williamson. We will talk a little about them later in the blog.

I must stress at this point that we support protests and are not here to belittle any organisation. I know exactly how hard it is to get support for a protest and how much effort it can take to generate interest. The point of this mini series is to question if the tactics we conduct are working, asking if we know exactly who we are protesting on behalf of and with whom and if we can learn anything of note. I personally have what some may say are controversial opinions on certain groups and tactics but it is opinion with the best of intentions.

So, UK Uncut had called for more protests just a few days after the previous (semi) high profile protest event on the day of the State Opening of Parliament, and it seems UK Uncut had better success at attracting the numbers. Being a Saturday and just after lunchtime it was hardly a surprise.

The UK Uncut website says of itself;

“UK Uncut is a grassroots movement taking action to highlight alternatives to austerity. We use acts ofcreative civil disobedience to show our opposition to the Government’s cuts to our public services”

They go on to say;

“Austerity-economics is the policy of the powerful. It cannot be stopped by asking nicely. If we want to win the fight against these cuts (and we can win) then we must make it impossible to ignore our argumentsand impossible to resist our demands. This means building a powerful grassroots mass movement, able to resist the Government cuts at every turn”

“Since 2010 there have been over 800 UK Uncut actions all over the country”

(The bold type will be relevant later)

The UK Uncut website doesn’t go into who runs it or how it really formed, just that it started from a group of people starting off with a hashtag and the idea growing from there.

I am more than a little curious, I would love to ask them how they built it up so much since 2010. After all, a good idea needs more than just a hashtag. Trust me.

Even with The People’s Assembly that we covered in Part 1 of this mini series at least they went into how it was formed and who they got the backing of in the first instance. You get an idea of where there roots are. (Generally Labour MP’s looking for a leftist platform for the party if you were wondering). With UK Uncut, you just don’t know.

UK Uncut claim to be neither left nor right leaning but offer alternative solutions to austerity. On their Wikipedia entry it states that the group was initially formed by 10 people in 2010 in a pub and yet in 2011 just one year after their formation, the following is said to have happened;

“In November 2011, the legal arm of UK Uncut took HM Revenue & Customs to court. HMRC had been accused of failing to provide substantial reasons for not collecting billions of pounds in tax revenue”
What group of people in a pub in the space of a year gets their own ‘legal arm’? The article doesn’t elaborate but we are taking it at face value. We think there is a question to answer there but we will leave it to you to decide what that question should be.

Before we move on to the organisers of the second Protest of the day we must pose just a couple more questions about the UK Uncut demo.

How did the protest go? And what of the bold text above that we haven’t touched upon yet?

Both questions can be answered as one. The protest happened. It happened and a fair number of people attended, a few thousand maybe.

What creative act of civil disobedience occurred to make it impossible for the government to ignore?

As far as we can reasonably be expected to know, a great big banner was unfurled over Westminster Bridge. Huzzah!

The event description contained the following passage;

The banner was indeed bold, exciting? Not so much. Creative? Far from it. Secret location? So secret I don’t think anyone knows what happened.. Was Westminster Bridge the secret location? Who knows.

And this;

The Green Party can give us an even better future than the SNP so I assume that UK Uncut are backing the Greens?

(Shameful Plug alert: Search #IAM99G on Facebook search or on Twitter… For a Green 2020)

So what have we learnt from today’s protest and the 800 other UK Uncut actions since 2010? Not a lot, other than government haven’t been moved by any of the 800+ actions.

So what of the second protest of the day?

Same day, same time, different location different cause, although once again we say if the protesters had teamed up maybe things could have been a lot different. So often we hear groups like the People’s Assembly and UK Uncut talk of unity and organising, yet they can’t seem to Organise with each other.

This cause though was for the threat to the Human Rights Act. (We think the word ‘Rights’ is how the spelling for the event was realised, ‘Great British Right off’). A noble cause and one which many activists online are talking about.

4,700 had said they would attend the UK Uncut demo. 6,200 had said the would attend the ‘Right off’ demo.

We estimated earlier that around 3,000 turned up for UK Uncut, so it wasn’t shabby at all. For the ‘Right off’ though we estimate about 100 turned up. How did we come to that conclusion? We have little idea ourselves. Actually it was allegedly 500 according to one update we read.

Meet the organisers of the ‘Right off’.

First up is Kyle Williamson, his profile gives nothing away other than one post which is anti-tory so that’s a good start although he couldn’t attend because of illness. Then we have Kelly Fitz… I think.. Well… It might… Then we move on to Jon Warner, poor old Jon. Jon seems to be the main organiser here and he was none too pleased at the turnout. I feel for him because I arranged a protest back on 2nd May and if it hadn’t been for Occupy and ‘Feed the Birds’ doing their own thing on the day the official attendence for my protest would have stood at a grand total of around 14. Maybe one or two more at a push. I really do feel for him.

One thing that stands out from Jon’s profile is that he is almost certainly a Labour supporter. He likes the Liberal Democrats but not that much.

Here are a couple of excerpts from his public status update after the protest;

think he is referring to the Unions hereBloody toothless Unionssea of yellow being the Lib Dems

look, here they are!

when all you want is a dozen Labour and all you end up with is 100 Lib Dems..
So what we have had today, much like we mentioned in Part 1 of this mini series is two different yet similar groups organising two different events on the same day, again, with one turning out well but having little impact on anything whilst another realises that as individuals we get the short end of the stick, we don’t have a name behind us, like ‘UK Uncut’ or ‘The People’s Assembly’. Maybe they should get a name. ‘Write off the Right off’ perhaps? No? I tried.

It just leaves me to point out one last thing. People’s Assembly, largely a platform for Labour MP’s as we pointed out in Part 1, the GB ‘right off’ most certainly Labour orientated (plus the Lib Dem 100). So when you support these events just remember you may be giving a voice or support, in an indirect way at least, to the Labour Party.

We need to do away with the Old political guard. Especially now Labour are moving to the right. It’s odd that Jon hasn’t noticed that yet. Jon! Get back over here… Go Green instead.

The next in the series will be sometime after the 20th June when we take another but much more brief look at The People’s Assembly again as well as the 10 million Bloc’s taking part. There is a bloc for everything these days. Part 4 will look at a National Strike on 29th June but we are not even sure the Unions either a) know it’s happening or b) would even turn up to their own protest if there was a national strike… Toothless. I may stop at Part 4. We will have to see how much comedy material I have left.

I wish that some activists would realise how two-faced and short sighted attitudes like this are.

This is the exact reason why FIFA has been able to get away with so much for so long.

When non politically minded people don’t vote or don’t protest because of statements like

“It won’t change anything” or

“Things could be worse”

We often accuse those people of apathy, of not seeing ‘the bigger picture’.

We as activists often go after the big corporations such as Coca Cola, Nike, Walmart, McDonalds because their unethical values and big money play a huge part in the corruption and injustice in the world be it financial or with human cost in the sweatshops.

Yet, somehow when it comes to the people’s game. The game of football, which through no fault of its own has been turned into a rich mans playground at least at the very top of the game is lambasted as not worth our time.. It’s only football, right? It’s only a distraction, isn’t it?

Before I lose you through uninterest (apathy reigns?), allow me to quickly give a few points as to why you should be taking a huge interest.

The human cost. In the recent Brazil World Cup communities were uprooted against their will to make way for the building of World Cup buildings

The human cost. In Qatar (an upcoming World Cup) migrants are literally dying in their thousands whilst working on World Cup buildings. Falling to their deaths because of a lack of safety equipments and awful working conditions. Migrant workers make up the largest percentage of the entire Qatar population. Not to mention the poor wages they earn. (Here is just one of many articles on worker deaths, the death toll by some estimates runs into the thousands)

It is said that the World Cup brings long lasting prosperity to a country, yet the evidence often fails to support this. When Brazil held the World Cup prior to its most recent one they said the same thing, yet old stadia lie in ruins, dilapidated wrecks. Things had improved for a while but ultimately there was no long lasting wealth or job creation. So for the people of the last World Cup in Brazil or South Africa and Qatar, what price their suffering?

The cost itself. These smaller nations willing to fork out Millions and billions for the right to host the tournament in the false belief that they will reap some financial reward that will never come or if it does, won’t last, yet many of their people still live in abject poverty.

The Corporations. Coca Cola, McDonalds, Nike and many more all put their brands to the World Cups. They spend their fortunes on the right to be a main sponsor. The money gained often through those unethical means we so often shout about.

The Internal corruption. Do we need to say any more on this?

Here we reach our final destination, our final point and perhaps we have saved the ‘best’ for last.

Where does the corruption reach?

We know that high level FIFA executives have been at it for ages and it’s about time they had their justice but is that it? Does the corruption now stop? No. The recent FIFA arrests are likely the tip of the iceberg and we may never see what’s under the water.

Still think it doesn’t concern you?

There has to be little doubt that some nations football associations are complicit in the corruption and then you have to ask do they have the backing of their governments? Whilst many suggest that the African nation’s are at the forefront of the corruption there are FIFA employees who are also from the Western nations and would you put it past some of those governments to get involved in a few back hand deals? Examples include Russia and Qatar as two stand out possibilities. Who would argue that?

What of our own government. Well, largely untouched by the controversies but let’s not forget a few key points

The FA were found to be giving ‘gifts’ to other nations during the 2018 & 2022 bidding process

The FA refuse to take any decision regarding FIFA, why would you associate yourself with a clearly corrupt organisation?

The UK government remains strangely silent on a matter that stretches the globe when we know that David Cameron likes to put his two pence worth in on usually the most mundane of subjects.

(I bet that bastard is up to his neck in it.)
In short. This has everything to do with us as activists.

You wouldn’t know it but on 2nd May 2015 the culmination of six months hard work in spreading the message and advertising of the People’s Protest and the ‘Bouncing Bombs’ event came to a head.

Around 5k people had been officially invited. 800 had pledged to attend, 200 undecided and many more seemingly pledging to come but not putting their name to the event. A small sum in online advertising was paid out and in excess of 6k people had viewed various online promotional videos.

3 weeks before the event took place Occupy officially announced they would be attending. 3 months prior the Anonymous collective had backed the event with advertising of their own. It was also Global Cannabis Day and the activist group ‘Feed the birds’ were attending under their own steam.

It was a Saturday, a May Day bank holiday weekend no less, the weather was cloudy but dry, and to top it off it was pre-election weekend. Oh, and love him or hate him, Russell Brand was also putting in a show at some point over the weekend.

What more could you ask for in terms of potential for a good crowd. So many positive factors a chance for so many groups to be heard before the election.

Several other groups were informed officially or made aware through general online posts and advertising.

Reclaim Brixton, London Black Revs, Perhaps the largest online anti-fracking community in ‘Fracking Hell UK’, even Student union groups and Unions were made aware through online posts.

Predictions for the attendance from various quarters ranged between 2,000 and 10,000, with hope for far more.

When the clock struck 11.45am on 2nd May outside Parliament (yes, Big Ben strikes at the quarter hour) we stood in awe at the amount of people in attendance. In awe at the fact that only around 10 people were visibly ready for the Bouncing Bombs event. Earmarked as a spectacle to launch footballs, tennis balls and rugby balls over into parliament territory. With 10 people, unless we wanted to be immediately arrested, there was little point. So we waited.

We carried on waiting and at around 12pm it was suggested that a game of casual football was started on the green opposite parliament with all the available balls. For an hour or so it was good. Children were playing football, grow men were doing their best to impress and one person even managed to hit a police officer with one of the footballs. A small victory.

We can only do our best to galvanise people, but you can’t force people to turn up.

A far cry from when barriers used to surround the green to prevent anyone entering.

1pm came and the People’s Protest was due to begin outside Downing Street. We heard that others had been up there earlier so we hoped that maybe a few more at least we’re mingling around.

We couldn’t have been more wrong. A grand total of zero others were there. Not one placard in sight apart from our own. Even one of the protesters that joined us from the Parliament Square couldn’t resist in taking a selfie in front of the gates to Downing Street. If you can’t beat them.. Join them.

Eventually we trudged back to Parliament Square where by now a fair few more had turned up although it was clear that they were there for Occupy and the Global Cannabis Day.

Still, the numbers had only swelled to around 200, at best, and that might be being very generous. It may have been nearer 100. I would be surprised to hear if more were there.

At Leicester Square on one of the adjoining junctions there was a brief sit down protest

So we, the People’s Protest naturally fitted ourselves in neatly with the Occupy crowd and to be fair, the day picked up. A good rousing sing-a-long, (not for no purpose, keep an eye on YouTube and itunes for an election special) a few stories told and a good old laugh had by all.

It was decided that there should be a gathering outside Downing Street and as an act of civil disobedience we would march on the roads. And that’s what happened with a brief stop outside Downing Street. In fact that brief stop provided one of the most entertaining and funny moments of the day when a police officer confiscated one of the footballs still being kicked around. Cue a line of protesters following the police officer in question around a now stuck-in-situ coach chanting “who’s ball? Our ball” and “we want our ball back”.

Eventually though the crowd moved on, flanked by police officers we marched to Trafalgar Square, Leicester Sqaure and near Oxford Street, this is where we broke off from the march ourselves.

At Leicester Square on one of the adjoining junctions there was a brief sit down protest but as hordes of police officers exited their police wagons the crowd decided it wasn’t the time to be playing around and walked back from where they had come. We passed another horde of police officers heading toward the now finished sit-down protest. That was a lot of police for only a relatively small crowd.

There the day ended, not withstanding a drink at a local pub in Victoria.

On returning back home it became apparent that one or two lone voices were not happy that they had attended and found so few in attendance, blaming us for the inconvenience it had caused them.

I met a guy who had travelled from St.Helens and another who had travelled from Bristol. They too were disappointed but made the most of the day and that’s all any of us could have done.

There was potential for thousands to have attended but apathy reigns supreme in the UK and it is indeed shocking that so many people online talk a good game but when it comes to action they are found wanting. That is not so much of a judgement on people who live miles away, it will always be difficult to get people from the other side of the country, that’s expected, but London is a big place and even London couldn’t put together more than a couple of hundred… In total.

thank you to the young girl that gave us some insight to maybe how things should be

We even met one chap who “had not been on anything like this before”, he lived in London but wanted to make the effort.

We can only do our best to galvanise people, but you can’t force people to turn up.

So what is the problem? It might be too early to tell but this is our starter for 10. If an established group like Occupy, for all their brilliant and commendable work, can’t gain more than 50 supporters on a weekend day, and if the GLOBAL cannabis March can’t attract more than 150 and Anonymous can’t attract more than 5 people and we, for the small name we are, can’t attract more than 5 ourselves..then to us that signals a huge problem with activism in this country. Yet you look online and there are thousands of us.

Maybe we are all too far apart in terms of distance to make any meaningful difference. Maybe Occupy is too niche, maybe Anonymous is running its course, Maybe people are just too lazy to be motivated enough.

We don’t have the answers but right now, despondent is the word. We can only hope that something one day triggers the masses.

One special mention of the day goes to a young sixteen year old girl we met on Parliament Square. She told us that her mother even encourages her to take actions and was even on UAF marches from the age of 5. She was confident, clearly intelligent and knew what she was talking about and a pleasure to talk to and most of all she was willing to lead and take actions herself. The best kind of activist.

Originally she told us she was there for ‘Bouncing Bombs’, She wasn’t there specifically under the name of Occupy, she didn’t need a mask.

When the country returns to activism like we witnessed in the 70’s and 80’s, very much like this young girl seems to be the modern day personification of, then we may stand a fighting chance.

Our future, here at RevSoc will continue but in what form may be open to debate.

Thank you Occupy for making our day worthwhile, and thank you to Feed the Birds for managing to galvanise a few people. Thank you to the few that did turn up to Bouncing Bombs and thank you to the young girl that gave us some insight to maybe how things should be. Independent, for the people, all inclusive. Very much in our eyes what the People’s Protest should have been.